


A Little Bit Pinocchio, A Little Bit Ex-Machina

by Legs (InsanityRule)



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: M/M, Robot Jared AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 15:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7719712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsanityRule/pseuds/Legs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I know what's inside.”</p><p>“Oh-kay?” Richard sets it on the table, “so…?”</p><p>“A hard drive, probably,” Jared starts to slowly peel back the tape, “it's… a project.”</p><p>“Why would Hooli,” Jared carefully lifts a hard drive out if the box and cradles it, “what is it?”</p><p>“Me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Bit Pinocchio, A Little Bit Ex-Machina

**Author's Note:**

  * For [joycecarolnotes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joycecarolnotes/gifts).



“So this,” Gavin searches for the right term, “Hoolibot,” he should copyright that after this meeting because it's  _ gold _ , “utilizes the AI we've been developing?”

“That's what the team tells me,” Patrice nods as she gently taps the face of the currently blank robot. “and they have a designer working on the outer appearance.”

“It's awfully tall,” Gavin comments. He's not used to having to look  _ up _ to his employees, figuratively or literally.

“There were space constraints in the smaller designs. The height allows for space for the circuitry and parts.”

“So, this robot will be taller than me.”

“Yes,” he frowns, “but they've kept it within expected human heights. I've been told the team opted to make the current AI version identify as male. He'll feel less out of place with his stature, and turn less heads.”

“Well, call me when he stops looking like a misassembled vacuum,” Gavin replies.

-

“He learns from scanning the environment,” Aly or Jason explains. “Language is off right now until he's completed initializing.”

“Right, of course,” Gavin speedwalks to the flesh and steel bot and watches as he, presumably, scans Gavin and processes his greatness. Gavin asks, excited, “does he recognize me?”

“That's not a feature we're putting in this model.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“We want the AI to mirror how people actually meet others, so he, you know, appears human? And anyway, we can't put a whole database in his head like that without frying something. There would be  _ billions  _ of entries.”

“Then just put important people in a database or something.”

“He's not even done processing the fact that he has a body. We're not going to overload his processor with usel-” he coughs, “with useful facts until he's done with these scans.”

“Fine, but he  _ will _ know who I am, right?”

“When… you can be the first introduction he makes, alright?”

Gavin nods to himself, although they should have assumed he should be a priority once they told him they overlooked teaching the robot that it was Gavin that made his existence possible. “Let's put a rush priority in that part of the project.”

-

Gavin watches the robot as he scans the items in the HR office. Or, he assumes because that's the only reasonable explanation for the lack of eye contact, because otherwise his team has neglected to give the world's first fully sentient robot any fucking manners.

“What is that?” He points behind Gavin's head at a fucking hideous photo collage. “Photographs, in a… a collage? Interesting.”

He's bored by the topic but the taking is certainly an improvement. “Have you met anyone yet?”

Because if he has Gavin's going to have a few words to say to the team. This is a historic moment, and he doesn't want the event tarnished by selfish assholes.

He tilts his head to one side. “He's Gary.”

Gavin frowns.

“He-” HR guy moves from his seat behind the desk, “my nameplate, right? You scanned this earlier?” The robot nods. “No introduction, just  _ deduction _ .”

Horrible rhyme aside, Gavin decides to save his irritation for another time. He's pleased by the cognitive skills at the very least. “Jared.”

He nods and smiles, and, unexpectedly, holds out a hand, “Donald.”

“Wh-?”

“Someone from the team mentioned he's writing his name as Donald and not Jared. It's a good sign, really, that he felt he needed an identity beyond the version.”

“I thought Donald was version four?”

“That was Daniel I believe.”

Gavin doesn't exactly have  _ evidence  _ he's right and Gary's wrong, so he decides to be the bigger man and concede for now. “Is he aware about…?”

“Yes. The team has been very straightforward with him.”

“Jared,” there's a droop in the robot’s shoulders, maybe a bug, “my name is Gavin Nelson.”

“Donald Dunn,” and they shake.

_ Where the fuck  _ did _ that name come from?  _ “Fine, call yourself whatever you like, but be prepared to respond to Jared.”

-

Internal temperature: 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Internal temperature: 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

“He's spiking whenever he scans,” Naveen points at the data.

“Well yeah, because he's… shit that resting temp is too high. What's… fuck, look at this.”

“Shit. Well, Gavin is the one that approved to remove the daily scan cap so he could 'broaden his horizons’” Naveen sighs as he watches the little ‘memory space critical’ alert flash. “How'd he fill five terabytes in a month?”

-

“Someone,” Gavin looks pointedly at the team, “gave him access to movies for his overnight hours, since  _ someone _ thought he should have an efficient sleep cycle, and he gets  _ lonely. _ Am i summing this up correctly?”

“Yes. Little daily scans don't take up much space, and he has an auto delete function on the unnecessary search data once a scan is complete, but he's watched, and essentially catalogued, hundreds if not  _ thousands  _ of hours. And it adds up,” Patrice explains, hoping to keep this meeting calm.

“Why isn't he storing it compressed?”

“Zipping and unzipping takes too much time. Conversations are random, and he'll stutter whenever he has to unzip to access his memory files for information. He'll fail the Turing Test.” Patrice glances to the team, who all nod “the older AI didn't have to process their bodies or interests and hobbies, just conversation. The scale up wasn't thorough enough to account for the extra data. Plus, the team tells me data integrity might be compromised if it's constantly being compressed and uncompressed.”

“If I wanted a robot with shitty memory I would have just hired another human.” Gavin massages his temples and Patrice takes a moment to schedule him a session with the masseuse on campus. “Can't he just delete some of it?”

Patrice puts a hand on Donald's forearm when he flinches.

“His memories aren't in a bunch of neatly organized folders. It works like human memory, stuff is all tangled together.” Eric explains. “You try to get rid of anything you run the risk of losing something important.”

She's sure she feels some tension leave Donald's arm, although it feels just as solid as it always has. “If I can offer up my time, I could receive requests to scan and approve them for Donald. It can't be that many.”

-

Patrice sighs and finally accepts what must be Donald's 100th request to scan Richard Hendricks, a recent hire, according to the Hooli database, and returns to her work. It  _ must  _ be important if he requests so many of just one person.

-

Donald's scan of Richard solidifies and catalogs away into his memory the moment Patrice okays the data request. Richard Hendricks, testing. 26. Hair red-brown. Compression algorithm. Donald sends another request to perform a rescan. It's denied.

“Can you imagine what you'll be able to do with a lossless compression algorithm in your system? You'd be an unstoppable force of business knowledge.”

He could watch  _ My Best Friend's Wedding  _ without his memory filling.

“Are you offering him a buyout? His nervous disposition isn't very well suited for management, according to preliminary scans.”

“I plan to for  _ that  _ reason. We can't let something this revolutionary go to waste.” Gavin opens the door to his office. “And if we play our cards right, you'll be getting an upgrade by the end of the month.”

-

“Gavin,” it's grating, hearing even Jared's soft voice, after that  _ damn  _ idiot refused- “I'm putting in a request to HR and, from what I've come to understand courtesy requires-”

“Just spit it out Jared.”

“I'd like to help Richard's team with their algorithm.” Gavin stares at this… this person really, that his team  _ created  _ from code and wire, and a strange and unfamiliar feeling washes over him as Jared asks to leave what basically his entire  _ purpose  _ revolves around. “I'm… I can request to quit my position, right? Humans quit all the time, for far  _ less _ .”

“Jared,” Gavin frowns. He is Not Pleased about this development, “begrudgingly, HR and I have…” he  _ hates  _ to think agreed because it's  _ wrong _ , “concluded that if we're going to continue development on AI to the point of creating beings with independent status, we'll honor your wishes, provided you take time to return to Hooli at some later date to update your systems.”

-

The exit interview is impromptu and quick, and Gavin prefers not to dwell on whatever Jared has planned. The second Jared leaves his office to “pack up his desk” Gavin summons Aly and Jason to his office. “You're still running background updates at Hooli only for Jared, right?”

“Yeah,” Aly/Jason shrugs, “what about them?”

“It seems our friend Jared is leaving Hooli.”

“We have his updates locked to Hooli IP addresses. He only gets them during our weekly status checks.” Aly/Jason days, which Gavin already knew. “He'll be way behind on our system updates if he doesn't come in anymore, and the team found some flaws that  _ need  _ fixed if he's going to keep functioning.”

“And the memory issue?”

“Critical. And no third party can alter his code without the drive, and it's locked until project Kelly gets approval.”

“Continue to update Jared's programming. And backburner Kelly for the time being.” He steeples his fingers. “Did either of you know about this loyalty shift?”

“I don't know if he was ever  _ loyal. _ We gave him full free will for a reason.”

“Right,” he's regretting full personhood already. “What the fuck does that Hendricks guy have that's so great anyway?”

-

Post TechCrunch  _ disaster _ , Gavin considers going to Jackson Hole for a few days to clear his head, but a single message on his desk come Monday changes his mind.

Jared is in, quite honestly, terrible shape. Gavin can't remember if he's physically able to cry, but his words are thick with the threat of some very real or at least very convincing tears.

“Something is wrong. I powered down at the hotel, and I couldn't boot physical functions for ten minutes.”

“Did you happen to run updates with the team when you first arrived today?”

“My memory,” he stutters to a stop and his eyes glaze over, “it's-”

“Less than 100 gigabytes left.” He received the report right before he called Jared into his office. “You're little friends at Pied Piper have kept you busy scanning.” Jared doesn't reply, possibly still stuck on his last sentence. “They  _ could  _ make changes using their algorithm, and  _ if  _ you weren't the current project I would've already released your code to a willing third party.”

He pauses for dramatic effect before revealing his kind benevolence, but the stutter seems to be affecting his physical reactions too because Jared's expression doesn't change, and Gavin doesn't have all day for this. “Seeing as our current project Kelly received approval last week, you're now a version behind-”

“Thank you!” Jared seizes up a bit but Gavin soaks in the appreciation all the same. “He's, I'm sure Richard...”

“Someone will send him the files.” Gavin takes notice of the droop around Jared's shoulders. Probably a delayed action from earlier. “I'm sure he can't fuck things up too badly, but when, sorry,  _ if _ he does, Hooli will be right where you left it.”

-

Richard assumes he's the only one in the incubator avoiding a post TechCrunch bar crawl until he hears a crash from the living room, and after finding a suitable (and clean) frying pan to use as a weapon he peers into the room and finds Jared slumped over and mourning the loss of one of Erlich’s bongs.

“He's,” Jared jerks upright and focuses on Richard, wow he still looks like shit, “Erlich won't know if you just clean it up.”

“Did,” he closes his eyes and gulps audibly, “did you receive a parcel?”

“Uh, maybe? Check the counter. Erlich dragged us to a bar, but maybe Jian Yang got the mail.”

Jared makes no move to look, so Richard (with an eye roll and shrug) goes over to the aforementioned counter, where he finds a simple, unrepairable package addressed to himself from Hooli. He's certainly not going to open that. Gavin. Probably sent him a live eat or something after TechCrunch.

“Okay, well, this is obviously just,” he lifts it roughly and gives it a shake. Jared squeaks, “what?”

“I know what's inside.”

“Oh-kay?” Richard sets it on the table, “so…?”

“A hard drive, probably,” Jared starts to slowly peel back the tape, “it's… a project.”

“Why would Hooli,” Jared carefully lifts a hard drive out if the box and cradles it, “what is it?”

“Me.”

Richard blinks a few times to try and jumpstart his thoughts. “You? What, like, a pet project? Next time don't have Hooli send things to me if-if it's just-” Jared hands Richard the drive and starts pulling at his hair, “what are you doing?”

“You're holding a copy of my AI.” Jared actually pulls back at a… a seem? At his hairline? A port, similar to a USB, and other circuitry is visible. Richard feels his legs lock up and only just manages to hand back the drive before passing out.

-

He comes to on the floor of his bedroom with his head resting on Jared's folded up best and a cool cloth in his forehead. “Richard do you feel alright? I can't detect subcutaneous injury.”

He takes a deep breath. “Did you scalp yourself?”

Jared, bless his weird, robot heart, nods. “I suppose that isn't entirely inaccurate, but it's all synthetic. I felt no pain.”

“How long-? fuck, wrong question,” Richard pushes himself up to a seated position and puts the cloth on his cheek, “so, Hooli? Did they, I mean if they had the… the drive...”

“I was created at Hooli, yes. Jared project, which makes me version ten.”

Richard looks up at the ceiling and ticks his fingers as he counts the alphabet. “Yeah, okay, so… so did Gavin plant you here or…?”

“No, no, of course not. I was told to “exercise my personhood” by the team, and I did that by deciding to work with you instead of remain at Hooli.”

“Bet they loved that one.”

“It was not a popular decision on my part.”

“So no… no crazy, horrible childhood or…”

“No. I came to understand that garnering sympathy often negated people's attempts to learn about my personal life. And now that I've been operational for a few years I have new, genuine stories about myself to talk about and relationships with people. I was planning to phase out bringing up my “childhood” in another year or so.”

Richard's not going to  _ admit  _ how relieved he is about Jared's childhood being fabricated, but he'll sure think it loudly. “Okay.”

“I'm more than happy to keep answering your questions.”

“Um… do you feel emotions? Fuck. Was that insensitive?”

Jared bites his knuckle; Richard can't help but wonder if it's an actual nervous response from anxiety or a learned mimicry to fool him. “I… I have broad strokes of the basic feelings, unrefined for the most part.” He looks up at Richard with the same wide, hopeful eyes from the night he first came over with a bottle of champagne. Richard wonders where he learned that too, where he learned most of the things he does really. “Happiness, sadness, fear, mostly one at a time.”

“You're a robot.”

“I'm a fully articulated humanoid machine with a fun… mostly functional AI program. So… yes. I am a robot.”

“This is,” Richard shakes his head and picks up the drive, “I don't know Jared. It's fucking crazy. How am I allowed to even  _ have _ this?”

“They've begun project Kelly. They released it to a third party of my choosing, you in this instance, because they've deemed me not industry ready and have obsoleted my programming. If it were  _ just  _ a program you could likely find it on GitHub.”

Richard searches his memories for a nicer way to say obsolete and comes up empty. “So you're… in. _ holding  _ you? You're all in here.”

“My operating system is, but I doubt my memories are.”

He's glad this potential humanoid is far less breakable than the real thing. He turns it over carefully, imagining a tiny version of Jared sleeping inside, ready to be this tall, awkward robot sitting in front of Richard. Maybe he would be completely different if he had initiated outside of Hooli. Richard admits that this is the closest he's ever come to wanting a kid, the idea that he could program one using Jared as a starting point.

“I need your help.” Richard looks up at Jared's pleading expression. Fear, probably. “My memory…” he stutters, and Richard is briefly worried he blue screened. Would his eyes change if he did? “It's rather full. I was hoping… well… with Pied Piper's algorithm working…”

“You need them compressed?”

I’m having considerable trouble with function execution because of the lack of space.”

Richard rubs a finger over one of the smooth edges of the drive and thinks. “I’ll probably fuck you up, somehow.”

“Richard,” he looks up at Jared, the robot, the  _ guy  _ asking him to fuck with every memory he’s ever made, “I believe in you.”

Not ‘what choice do I have’, not some horrible unconcerned comment about only being synthetic or a year old or anything like that. He  _ believes  _ in Richard, and Richard feels equal parts anxiety and appreciation that at least  _ someone  _ has so much faith in his ability.

So he agrees.

-

“Okay, so, Gilfoyle’s gone… somewhere, and his computer is probably, maybe, better than my laptop so we can use it for this… this’ll be quick right?”

“I’ve never had my memories compressed before,” Jared admits, “I can’t instantly access zipped folders, and before there was no lossless compression.”

So this could fail horribly and ruin his friend’s life. Great. He hands Jared whatever weird cord came with the drive. “I don’t… you can put this in, right?” Jared nods, smiling and carefree, as if he  _ isn’t  _ putting his fate in Richard’s shaky hands. Richard presses his lips together in an attempt to concentrate as he hooks up the drive and takes a look at Jared’s programming.

It’s humongous.

It makes sense, because until today Richard thought Jared was a nor- well not normal but not a robot. He skims a tech document and finds the portion dedicated to memory allocation and creation. “ Do you have  _ any  _ clue how I should implement this?”

“Perhaps so it compresses as they’re being formed?” Yeah  _ that  _ sounds a little terrifying, “or if you can at least compress what I already have?”

That would maybe work if Jared wasn’t actively creating memories right this second. “I’ll have to make it work retroactively, but  _ also  _ get them on the way in.” He cracks his knuckles and starts mentally stringing code together. “I’ll do my best okay?”

“I know you will.”

Jared has this wistful, almost sleepy look on his face as he watches Richard work. Or, fuck, it might be the temp he’s running at, “Jared you’re running way too hot.”

He looks over but doesn’t reply. Richard bounces in his seat a second, panicking, and runs to the bathroom to rewet the cloth Jared used earlier. He also grabs a box fan and sets it on a chair to the right of Jared. “You’ll be okay, shit,” he plugs it in and cranks the knob to three. THen he unbuttons the top two buttons of Jared’s shirt and hold the cloth to his chest.

This is a horribly compromising position to be in, but Jared feels  _ hot  _ to the touch. He  _ needs  _ this. Richard touches Jared’s cheek and he leans into it, opens his eyes slowly, looks up at Richard from under his long, dark synthetic eyelashes.

Fuck.

He will  _ never  _ live it down if people found out he kind of wants to fuck a robot.

The cloth and the fan bring Jared back around enough for Richard to get back to typing, which he does, and he tries his damndest to  _ not  _ think about how Jared’s shirt is still hanging open.

“Richard, you appear to be a bit flushed, most likely from potential arousal.”

He’s pretty sure he just died.

Richard’s fingers freeze and he  _ freaks out  _ a bit, his vision tunnels and hearing reduced to ringing. Because Jared didn’t ask, he stated. He’s afraid to look at himself in the screen’s reflection.

“You don’t mind?”

“Wh-” Richard turns his head a tiny fraction and watches Jared gesture to himself.

He’s dead.

“The synthetic nature of my body.” God it’s like he’s a giant dil- no, no no no don’t think that.

Richard shakes his head. “Apparently not huh? Fuck.”

Jared smiles and settles a bit more comfortably in his chair. He doesn’t say anything else, thank fuck, and Richard gets back to typing. He doesn’t have time to think about this anymore, not until Jared’s in ‘sleep mode’ processing his memories, not until the point of no return for Jared is long past.

-

Jared doesn’t move when he’s powered down, which is creepy  _ and  _ makes him look dead, both not great things to have to be around, and right now Richard is waiting to see if he completely fucked up Jared’s programming, so he’s  _ doubly  _ anxious as he watches and waits for Jared to power back up.

More than once he tells himself that Jared has a lot of memories. That this  _ should  _ take a long time if it’s working, and that  _ it’s only been a half hour and he needs to  _ **_chill_ ** _. _

Richard’s just glad he convinced Jared to lie down in the loft bed rather than somewhere anybody could see him, but it means Richard is just awkwardly blocking the door to his room and watching,  _ hoping  _ to see some signs of artificial life any minute now.

No really, he should move, like,  _ right  _ now.

And  _ here  _ he goes, fuck. Richard is not equipped to hold vigil over electronics, even though this feels just like that time Bighead borked his laptop.

He should really just fuck around with some of his work to keep himself busy. He just needs to sit down, and open his laptop. And here he goes-who is he kidding he can’t just  _ abandon  _ Jared while he’s powered down and defenseless. It would be about as bad as leaving his computer open, unlocked, and readily available for literally anyone else in the incubator to fuck with. God, it is  _ exactly  _ like that. He’s not sure how he feels about that yet.

Except for the part where he  _ might _ be attracted to the robot currently lying in his bed, so there’s that.

He's going to just ignore that until relevant. It'll probably be far in the future, or never happen, because what dingus gives a sentient robot feelings of attraction? Well, Richard knows the answer to that, but he's  _ also  _ going to ignore the part of the population that would rather date machines, himself included. Shit.

Jared just needs to hurry up and wake up so they can talk about this, or agree to never speak of it again. Really he just needs to wake up period. Richard doesn't want to spend time considering the possibility that he ruined Jared's programming any more than he already has, which has been about 43 minutes straight according to his clock.

“Okay,” he can't take this. He abandons his post by his door and climbs the ladder up to his bed. “Jared, hey uh… I don't know why I'm trying to ask you if you're done, because-because clearly, you're not. So, yeah. Great.” He kicks off his shoes and sits against the wall with his legs tucked close to his chest. “I probably fucked you up, and now you're just like my goddamned  _ phone _ after Erlich dropped it. And…” Jared's eyelids flutter, “oh fuck.”

Jared sits up, blinks, and he  _ stares  _ at Richard, maybe taking things in,  _ maybe  _ horribly broken and unable to say anything because Richard is a terrible coder and he should have never even tried- “good afternoon, Richard. Or… I suppose it's evening. My internal clock hasn't been functional for a few weeks. I'll have to reconnect to the inter-oh?”

Richard, for all his neuroses about touch and affection, plows through his aversions and pulls Jared into a hug. “God, I thought I fucked you up or something.”

“On the contrary, I feel better than I have in  _ months _ , functionally speaking.” He returns the hug, and Richard is too relieved to try and pull away, for now at least. “ _ Thank  _ you.”

“You don't feel like metal.” He comments, remembers what the hug at TechCrunch felt like, both the warmth and just how  _ good  _ it feels when Jared squeezes his back.

“I'll have to thank the Hooli designer for that. He's very talented.”

Richard wonders about just  _ how  _ talented this designer is, and pushes aside petty concerns of where he pulled inspiration from, worrying he might've taken a bit too much from the Ken dolls his sister always played with. “You're perfect.”

And he was supposed to  _ think  _ that, but it's too late to do anything but crawl into a hole and die. But Jared just holds on tighter, and Richard's glad his dumb mouth can't keep shut for five minutes when  _ this  _ is the result.

-

He's dating a glorified laptop.

Not, well not  _ dating _ , not exactly, but he's not  _ not  _ dating him either. It's complicated, because Richard is struggling to attach words to their relationship other than ‘he's happy’ and ‘it's good’, but Jared doesn't seem to mind. He just powers down into sleep mode next to Richard on the loft bed and, with the helpful addition of a minor program, actually appears  _ alive  _ when in this mode. It's far more comforting to sleep next to, even if the movement of his chest doesn't actually provide him with more than a way to vent warm air.

They haven't really done  _ anything  _ other than sleep beside each other, but for now that's more than enough for Richard. And more than his anxiety can handle, but he's working on that.

And sure, no one else knows, but that's okay. Or, Jared says it's okay. And they're both busy enough with Pied Piper's recent success. Things are good.

So of course Gavin Belson decides to call him now.

He didn't recognize the number the first time and lets it go to voicemail, and after  _ Gavin Belson  _ leaves a goddamned message he names the number 'fucking asshole’ and starts ignoring the calls.

Gavin, as it turns out, is  _ persistent _ , and after a week Richard gives up and shouts a rather put out sounding “what!?” at his phone.

“You could really use some fucking _ manners _ and realize if I'm trying this hard to contact you it must be important.”

“Yeah, well, I've had my hands full. If nothing on fire or you're taking back the whole, “you're suing me” thing I'm not interes-”

“Jared appears to be functioning well. I'm assuming you've managed to fix up his little memory problem.”

Fuck.

“Since you're not answering I'll assume that's a yes.”

“Why do you even  _ care _ ?” Richard glances over to the workspace, where Jared is watching him with interest and maybe a little concern. Richard probably looks like shit, but he doesn't have access to a mirror to confirm. “Yes. Okay? He's… he's great. And I don't see why it matters to  _ Hooli _ , but, yeah.  _ I  _ fixed  _ your  _ mistakes.”

“Good to hear.” That's not right he should sound angry. “I'm pleased to know memory compression doesn't effect function.”

“Y… you didn't know?”

“We do now, and that's the important part. And I'm feeling generous, so when we implement lossless compression in the current project your third party contribution will be noted as a beta test.”

“He… he could've just basically  _ died  _ if I was wrong, and… and you-”

“I'm going to stop your little rant because, one, we have a full backup of your little friend, minus a few day's worth of memories, for research mind you, and I'm sure we could have reinstalled them without issue. Two, isn't this what you wanted? Your algorithm will be the industry standard for AI machines, and if you ever realize your little company is a lost cause on its own you're welcome here at Hooli to maintain the version we've so generously received from the app you gave us.” Richard storms outside to the backyard so he can  _ really  _ yell about this. “Three, I'm a busy man, so just think about the part where I  _ personally  _ put in a system to restore if you royally fucked up, which you didn't. You should be congratulating yourself for your achievement.”

“Yeah, well I think I will. I'll…” he trails off as Jared opens the back door. “I need to go.” He hangs up and waves. “Hey Jared, uh… that was just…” he rubs his lips together, trying to think of  _ anyone  _ else that would call. “Bighead.”

“Are you two fighting? Scans suggest… sorry, you requested I not say that-”

“No no. Um… it's fine. What do they say?”

“You're agitated, and your body temperature has spiked.” Well he  _ does  _ feel warm. “Are you in need of anything? Perhaps a mediator? I've been scanning books about communication and conflict resolution in preparation for our eventual trial.”

“No, it's okay. I'm  _ fine _ , really.”

Jared dotes for a few hours, they secretly complete an update to Jared's system, and go to bed without Richard giving the conversation another thought.

-

“So, there are  _ three  _ files of each scan?”

Patrice nods and indicates a PowerPoint presentation she's showing to Gavin about the conclusion of Jared project. “I've requested a full code test multiple times, and the team has found no indication that they added this feature.”

“That makes  _ zero _ , sense. He's using up  _ three _ times the space needed for  _ one  _ scan. One of those idiots is covering up a major mistake.”

“I don't think so,” Patrice pulls up the next slide, one with examples of code for memory formation and storage. “Here, here, and here are the responsible lines of code, and none of them have any duplicate sections or wording suggesting this would happen. Donald  _ stores  _ three copies of his scans of his own. It's likely he scans in triplicate, faster than any of us can tell, or maybe simult-”

“Why the  _ fuck  _ would he do that? It filled his memory three times as fast!”

“It may have…  _ obsoleted _ him three times as fast.”

Gavin stares at the screen, covers his mouth with his hand, makes a very distinct  _ pout  _ behind his palm, and asks, “are you suggesting this was on  _ purpose _ ?”

“Either that, or the team  _ has  _ been doctoring the reports and lying about a major error in the code.”

She doesn't want to think Donald did this on purpose, but she doesn't know what else to think. “Gavin, with the obsoleting of a project, he receives only maintenance, correct?”

“Yes, it's part of the process.” His eyes widen and he looks to Patrice. “Were we fucking  _ played  _ this whole time?”


End file.
